Merger of T-Mobile/AT&T is Good for Consumers

Jim is the the director of communications at The Heartland Institute. Prior to joining Heartland, he was an ink-stained newspaperman for 16 years with many stops in "old media."

Jim covered Congress and The White House during the George W. Bush administration for The Washington Times, and worked as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist for newspapers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California. He has appeared on the Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, and many local and national talk radio shows to talk politics and policy.

Buying rather than building new capacity improves service today (or nearly today) — not years from now. It’s a home run for the companies — and for consumers.

Bret notes that “we’re nearing 300 million mobile subscribers in the U.S.” and we should see an additional 60 million Americans connected wirelessly via “tablets, kiosks, remote sensors, medical monitors, and cars” by 2014. That’s a staggering number. As for AT&T, Bret notes that mobile data traffic on the company’s network “rocketed 8,000% in the last four years” — thanks, in large part, to the popularity of the iPhone and AT&T’s joint venture with Apple.

Bret touches on a point I like to emphasize when talking to friends, or on radio spots and podcasts I do on occasion. The technology we quickly experience now is quite new. Indeed, the consumer electronics we almost take for granted was almost unimaginable just a few years ago:

Remember that just a decade ago there was essentially no wireless data traffic. It was all voice traffic. A few rudimentary text applications existed, but not much more. By year-end 2010, AT&T was carrying around 12 petabytes per month of mobile traffic alone. The company expects another 8 to 10-fold rise over the next five years, when its mobile traffic could reach 150 petabytes per month.

Hell, video conferencing (let alone a one-on-one video phone call) was “Jetsons” technology just five years ago. Today, anyone can Skype with multiple people … for free.

A relatively unfettered free market in the digital economy has brought us these wonders. And micromanagement by the Federal Communications Commission and other federal bureaucracies can just as quickly keep future wonders from appearing. That’s why Heartland has long said: Hands off the Internet … and wireless.

Merger of T-Mobile/AT&T is Good for Consumers was last modified: March 22nd, 2011 by Jim Lakely